Dave Mulder catches himself apologizing to his dishwasher. Sometimes he closes the door a little too hard and out sneaks a little “sorry.” He doesn’t like that he does this. Machines are machines, and they don’t need his human sympathies.
Mulder, 50, is the chair of the education department at Dordt University, a Christian college in Sioux Center, Iowa. He’s fond of the old-school classroom. He taught his first classes in 1988, when he had no computer, just a chalkboard and overhead projector. He recently authored a book called Teach Like a Human.
Yet Mulder is also trying to normalize artificial intelligence—its use, its presence in student and faculty discussions, its inevitable proliferation across college education. He, like faculty and administrators at Christian colleges everywhere, is trying to discern the proper role of AI in faith-based academia.
Mulder’s career coincided with the rise of the internet, and he sees in today’s AI debates echoes of old campus-wide panic over “what we’re gonna do about this World Wide Web,” he told CT. Many Christians are wary of AI, Mulder included. He both loves technology and is skeptical of it. It concerns him when people engage AI with a posture of “Jesus, take the wheel.”
Cedarville University, another Christian school, is trying to take the wheel instead. While Mulder said his university has yet to solidify a coordinated effort regarding AI use, Cedarville—based in Ohio—recently celebrated a full year of campus-wide AI integration.
The school says it’s the first evangelical Christian university to offer subscriptions to ChatGPT Edu, a school-tailored model built by OpenAI, to its students, staff, and faculty. It also offers AI guides and workshops, pledging to help students be “AI-savvy, not AI-illiterate” when they walk across the graduation stage, as president Thomas White put it.
Some of Cedarville’s experiments have been service-oriented: A group of computer engineering students used AI to develop Alfred, an autonomous voice-controlled robot designed to assist older adults living independently. Others built a dating app called GoFish, which uses a structured algorithm and user survey data to provide a maximum of one match per week. Two freshmen created the swipe-free app as a counter to “hookup culture,” promoting patient, in-person meetups among potential couples. More than 200 of Cedarville’s 7,265 students signed up for the pilot of the app, which will be relaunched this fall.
Other AI trials emerged in response to classroom behavior. Chris Miller, senior professor of biblical studies, created custom AI tools for his students after realizing they were already using chatbots to study. Rob McDole, director of Cedarville’s Center for Teaching and Learning, did something similar, building what he calls a “Socratic bot.” Rather than simply lecture on Christian philosophy or Scriptures that speak to metaphysics, McDole also inputs data into his AI helper and constrains the bot to dialogue with students about only that material.
McDole has encountered issues with students using AI to complete assignments, “cheating themselves of education,” he told CT. But that doesn’t concern him too much, because chatbots simply expose a “malfunction” that was already there. If a student wants to cheat, they will find a way to cheat.
McDole’s custom bot, meanwhile, is programmed to prompt, not provide, student answers. Even if it were misused, he argues, the uptick in AI assistance has an unexpectedly positive effect: It prioritizes authentic assessment over standardized testing.
“Students take their work and give it to the bot, ask it questions, show their responses,” McDole said. “And I get to see how they’re thinking, the quality of their questions. As a teacher, that’s gold. If I were to do that physically with each student for 20 minutes apiece—well, I can’t.”
At Dordt, Mulder uses AI—mostly Claude, from Anthropic—for smaller, personal tasks, like generating summaries of his own notes. “I don’t think I’ll ever write a rubric without AI now,” he said.
Still, he emphasizes his human touch: He always has to polish what the AI produces, and he’s the voice in front of the classroom. He suspects most of Dordt’s staff and students are using AI regularly, even if his own classes are surprised to learn that he’s okay with that.
“I didn’t become a teacher because I wanna be a cop,” Mulder said. He tells students that he’s not opposed to them using AI as long as they’re transparent about when and how they’re doing so. Dordt’s incoming students are required to sign a statement of faith promising to “speak the truth,” so Mulder thinks honesty is a fair bar to clear.
If students don’t want to admit to using AI, Mulder said, it’s “probably a sign” they’re not using it ethically. The same principle applies to Christians—or anyone—beyond campus.
Machine learning has been around for years, in everyday uses like video game chess and phone autocorrect features. But the tech is now so expansive that it allows for even more “offloading of our ability to think,” Mulder said. Students at Baylor, Wheaton, Fuller Seminary, and other Christian schools recently told CT they were mostly opposed to AI, pointing to a reduction in critical thinking, even as some noted it was becoming “instinctual to use AI” for studying.
McDole, at Cedarville, dismisses some common criticism of AI—for instance, hand-wringing about the energy usage of AI data centers.
But he, like Mulder, is concerned about the flattening of human and virtual relationships. Increasingly, real people get objectified on social media, and robots get humanized by consumers. Which is why McDole thinks it’s paramount to define AI as a tool, not a friend or an omnipotent ally. “Behind the tool is always someone making choices,” McDole said. “You can take a shovel and harm someone with it, or you can use it to put seeds in the ground, dig foundations, build shelters and gathering places.”
So McDole advocates for clear language around what AI is—and what it isn’t. Students are made in God’s image. Chatbots are not. “One of the dangers is turning to it as if it were a god, and frankly, that’s why most of the world is using it,” McDole said. He advises Cedarville students and colleagues: Don’t talk to chatbots like they’re people.
Or, if you’re Mulder over in Iowa, don’t talk to your dishwasher. “Part of me always wants to say please and thank you because it feels intelligent,” he said. But these subtle remarks blur the line between machines and humanity in an age where chatbots are marketed like close friends, personal therapists, and “second brains” that will read your text messages and fix your romantic relationships.
McDole says he is “fearless” about advancing tech because he affirms God’s sovereignty: “AI doesn’t surprise him.” He says the university’s president, Thomas White, has encouraged him to push students even further into AI tools. McDole envisions more student-led service projects; he dreams of students developing a Good Samaritan robot that could help clean up storm debris and locate survivors after disasters.
For all his tech optimism, though, McDole admits it’s “scary at the same time.”
Christian schools across the country are racing to adopt AI on their campuses. Biola University runs the AI Lab and sent students last year to the Gloo AI Hackathon, a mission-driven tech competition, to square off against teams of engineers from companies such as Google and YouVersion. Their projects included an AI-powered app that assesses users’ digital habits and screen-time goals, as well as a real-time translation app that generates sign language videos from voice audio and is designed to make church services more accessible.
Cornerstone University, in Michigan, formed an AI advisory board and an applied AI certification program. Harding University, in Arkansas, now offers a bachelor of science degree in AI.
At Dordt University, opinions are all over the map, according to Mulder: Some think the school is dragging its feet, while others think AI advocates are moving too quickly. To Mulder, that means they’re probably doing it just right.
“There are so many things the Bible does not clearly say,” he explained. “We know God creates good things, but the stink of sin is on everything.”
